It’s been one month since former president Donald Trump was shot during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
At first, it seemed to those close to them as if QAnon adherents might finally be shaken from their long-held conspiratorial belief systems. In their universe, Trump was waging a secret war against the deep state, and no matter what happened in the real world—like Trump losing the 2020 election, or being found guilty in court—it was always explained away as being part of the plan. Trump was always in control. But the assassination attempt had people wondering.
“I'm really struggling with all of this. If Trump was really shot at with real bullets, and real people were really hurt,” a QAnon influencer known as Joe Rambo wrote on his Telegram channel. “I can't figure out where the psyop ends and reality begins tbh. I have so many questions. So many people are up in arms.”
Other leading figures within the QAnon movement even chastised their followers who were boosting conspiracies that Trump himself had staged the shooting. “You are making us all look like idiots to the people we are still trying to wake up …” a QAnon-boosting account known as TruthHammer wrote on X.
“Are Patriots in Control?” Dave Hayes, one of the most prominent QAnon promoters—also known as Praying Medic—asked in a post on X, echoing a popular QAnon phrase normally used to explain away any events that don’t align with QAnon’s worldview.
But that lack of certainty soon wore off, and over the past few weeks, QAnon influencers and their followers have decided that Trump is still in control and this is all part of the plan.
For the desperate families and friends of QAnon believers, the shooting briefly offered them some hope that their loved ones might finally break free of a conspiracy that has ravaged families and torn apart friendships across the US over the past seven years. But very quickly, many learned that rather than helping them escape, the shooting had just driven them further down the rabbit hole.
“My QAnon family members have doubled down,” says one person who requested anonymity over fears of damaging their relationship with family members. “They strongly believe this is a sign that [Trump] really is ‘the Chosen One of God’ because of how ‘God protected him.’ It’s so bizarre. I'm shocked and disgusted and completely baffled by everyone’s response to all of it.”
In the wake of the shooting, many Trump supporters and even GOP lawmakers painted the former president’s survival as a case of divine intervention.
“The shooting just reinforced my mother’s previously held beliefs,” says another person who requested anonymity in order to protect their privacy and their family’s privacy. “I remember when Q first came out and she was all excited about it, she embraced it fully from day one. I don’t think there’s a single QAnon conspiracy that she doesn’t fully believe. She 100 percent believes that Trump is ‘God’s Anointed.’”
From the very first “Q drop” in 2017, which predicted Hillary Clinton’s imminent arrest, QAnon has made predictions that certain events were about to happen. When these events don’t happen, believers concoct some elaborate explanation for why the predictions didn’t come true and move on to the next event, with many becoming even more faithful—a classic pattern among believers in prophecy.
Ahead of the Trump shooting, QAnon promoter Phil Godlewski predicted on his Rumble show to 200,000 followers that there would be “a scare event” or a “9/11–type event” in the coming weeks. When Trump was shot, many of Godlewski’s followers were quick to claim his prediction had come true.
“My Q friend would call me and inform me that if this happens, to not be afraid, as it’s all part of The Plan,” says Jay, who asked to be referred to by his first name only to protect his privacy. “Once the shooting happened, my friend was quick to call to tell me that ‘it’ happened, the scare event. He told me that it’s totally staged, to not be afraid, and that I should believe that Phil is right, that his sources are correct.”
Jay says his friend went on to claim a global financial reset would happen next, before Trump would be reinstated in November. “Phil has made plenty of other vague predictions that haven’t come true, but since this vague prediction did happen, my Q friend is doubling down,” says Jay.
In at least one case, the shooting seemingly caused a former QAnon believer to slip back under the conspiracy’s spell.
Amy, who asked to use her first name only to protect her privacy, says she has known her friend Jane since they met in college 20 years ago. During Trump’s first term in office, Jane began posting positive messages about the former president on Facebook, and when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Jane went further into QAnon conspiracies.
“Her posts became unhinged and wild,” Amy tells WIRED. “Speculation of deep-state-type conspiracies. She hated Democrats, Joe Biden, and the Clintons for vast and unhinged reasons.”
Over the past couple of years, Jane had all but stopped posting conspiracies about Trump and the deep state, instead sharing photos and missives about her pets. Then the shooting happened.
“Full-on unhinged posting hour after hour,” says Amy, describing Jane’s social media content. “She fully and publicly supported Trump. She blamed the shooting on a liberal in an alt-right shirt. She definitely believes Joe Biden or the Democrats arranged it.“
Katrina Vaillancourt, a former QAnon believer who has written a book about her experience, says that had she still been under the spell, she thinks, she would have also doubled down in the wake of the Trump shooting.
“I would have assumed this was a desperate attack by the evil cabal, using its tentacles of the deep state, including members of the FBI and Secret Service, and the fact that Trump survived it is as close as we get to evidence that God is on Trump’s side,” Vaillancourt tells WIRED. “I would be online doing ‘research’ for at least four hours a day, and up to 10 hours a day if something really got under my skin, as this one would have done.”
Vaillancourt, a former die-hard Bernie Sanders supporter, was radicalized overnight after watching all 10 episodes of a video series called Fall of the Cabal, one of the core pieces of content that convinced millions of people that a secret group of elites was operating a global sex trafficking ring.
Vaillancourt says she would not have been able to escape QAnon’s clutches were it not for her then fiancé, now husband, and her father, who stuck by her despite her rapid descent down the QAnon rabbit hole.
“I would never say there's no hope, but I think the burden lies on the person who is not in QAnon,” Stephen Vaillancourt, Katrina Vaillancourt’s husband, tells WIRED. “If there is a chance that she'll come back, you have to give her a soft landing place to make it possible for her to come back—and so that was my work.”
And despite the disappointment of seeing her friend slip back into QAnon conspiracies so quickly, this is exactly the approach that Amy took with her friend Jane.
“I sent her a text that I loved her and that our disagreement didn’t mean I was abandoning her,” says Amy. “I want her to have a soft place to land if or when she realizes she has been incredibly wrong this entire time—that is a hard reality to face.”
